Puma (PUMA) Sues Wuxi Supermarket Infringement

　　 Puma The puma image of the company is well known, but many people do not know that it is in Puma. brand The arc-shaped runway pattern, which is often seen on shoes, is also a registered trademark of Puma. Recently, the court in Binhu District of Wuxi accepted a lawsuit from Puma. A supermarket in Wuxi was prosecuted for selling non Puma brand sports shoes with such "runway".

In early 2011, the staff of Puma company, together with notaries, purchased some shoes containing "Puma" runway figures in a supermarket in Binhu District of Wuxi, asked for invoices and purchased the suspected products. tort The product is photographed and sealed up as evidence. Subsequently, Puma took the supermarket to court on the grounds of infringing the exclusive right to use the registered trademark. Puma believes that it has registered in China in 1991, including "PUMA", "leopard graphics", "runway graphics", "PUMA and leopard graphics" and other trademarks, and has been approved for use in clothing, shoes, hats, bags and other commodities.

Puma said that the supermarket, without the permission of Puma, used the trademark which was the same or similar to its registered trademark in the sale of goods. The purpose of misleading consumers is very clear. Its behavior infringes Puma's exclusive right to use registered trademarks. Accordingly, the company was asked to stop the infringement, make an apology publicly and compensate the RMB two hundred thousand yuan.

Supermarkets retort that the stripes in their products are not significantly similar to Puma's "runway" logo. At the same time, the profit of supermarket operation is not high, and the amount of prosecution compensation by Puma company is too high to be borne by itself.

The key question is, is the arc-shaped runway icon on many shoes really a trademark?

According to the judge, Puma, as a world-famous sports brand, has registered its trademark "PUMA" as a trademark. Its jumping Cougar pattern and crooked runway pattern are also its trademark logo. "It's the same as Nike's crooked pattern and Adidas's Clover pattern and triangle pattern." Therefore, the use of this logo as a decorative pattern of shoes and clothing products will still cause confusion among consumers, which may lead to misleading consumers. Puma's crooked runway pattern, though not as obvious as the leaping Cougar pattern, can enable businesses to really enhance the legal awareness of trademark protection, strictly enforce purchase and sales links, and the judges first focus their efforts on mediation.

After some reasoning, the supermarket recognizes its infringement. However, it is difficult to accept the amount of compensation, so the judge has repeatedly communicated with Puma agents, and is acutely aware that Puma is also planning to sue the store for infringement. In order to win the concession of the Puma company in compensation, and to reduce the cost of its rights protection, the judge took the initiative to incorporate another case into the scope of mediation, which was recognized by both sides. Finally, the two sides concession on the conciliation amount and reached an agreement.